Breaking Free from the Past
by SuchIsMyLife
Summary: AU/AH: After learning that it's best to not trust anyone, 17-year-old Elena swears to herself to not make the mistakes her mother has done and to not fall in love ever. It's getting more and more difficult for her to stick to this after she mets her younger brother's friend, who is undeterred by her attempts to push him away.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot!**

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Groaning loudly, Elena opened her eyes, but closed them again instantly after being blinded by the rays of the morning sun streaming through the open curtains of the white big window behind her desk. After turning her thin sheets with the warm side outwards she put them above her head and snuggled into the cold fabric. She felt it cooling her legs and arms and the small part of her back that wasn't covered by the pink shirt she wore. Slowly, it also crept through the pink cotton garment and the striped shorts, effectively both making her more awake and more tired as the bed became cosier. She didn't want to get up today, didn't want to write this 5-page-essay about the poetry of Lord Byron for English Literature, didn't want to go to the Tyler's party with Caroline tonight.

After that one day in late October 2007 there were a lot of things she didn't want to do anymore. Things like going out with friends, having fun, sitting with her parents and her brother at breakfast in the cosy white kitchen with its light brown furniture, but most of all trusting anyone...neither her family and her friends nor strangers.

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October 2007

_"How dare you?" She heard the tear-stained voice of her mother – now beyond the point of caring about their children to hear the argument between herself and her husband. "How dare you do this to me...to us...your family? Ten years ago, after losing your job at 'Lockwoods' you promised me...you PROMISED...not to do this again. How dare you? How dare you taking out a loan with the Mikaelson brothers? Again!? Why did you resign your well-paid job at started to work at another company without telling me? Why did you risk earning 500$ less a month, though you have to support a family?" Elena tried to block everything out...to stop hearing everything. Tears started to stain her cheeks, while her body trembled underneath the blanket that covered the tiny figure in the corner next to the door leading to the adjoining bathroom. It wasn't the first fight she had to listen to and she was sure that it wasn't the last one either. "Keep calm for God's sake", she heard her father's faint voice "You don't want the kids to worry about nothing serious!" "Nothing serious!? NOTHING SERIOUS? You are...you...I should have gotten a divorce ten years ago. I should have left you like mom suggested. She was right!" "Your mother hated me right from the beginning until her death. She was the one who made you believe that I am a worthless person. And even now, after her death, her freaking ghost keeps haunting me in form of you! You have no right to talk to me like this. I do so much to support this family. You've quit your job after Elena had been born. I fucking didn't lie to you. I tried to spare you the worry about the money." _

_Elena heard the clash of a bottle being thrown into the sink. Her father started drinking and smoking again. Two other things he lied about, too. She tried to remember the happier times, when Jeremy, she and their parents used to spend the weekends at their lake house. Now, she knew that everything had been just an act. At that time, her father had just taken a loan with the Mikaelson brothers for the first time. She bet it hadn't been the first time he had lied to her mum. Nonetheless, they had tried to spare the kids, succeeded in letting them live in world where their family life was perfect, the marriage of their parents perfect and no financial worries existed. Nowadays, they screamed, RIGHT NOW they were screaming and throwing wine bottles into the sink and magazines and newspaper pages at each other. She knew that there was no chance for her to make them stop. She was on her own in her room with no one to help her, even Jeremy wasn't there, but at a friend's house. _

_Her thoughts were disrupted by her mother's screeching voice. She just couldn't...she couldn't stand the noise, the screaming and the fear that her dad would leave them, that they would be on their own. Not because she would miss him, but she didn't know what would happen to the family. "You know what? YOU. KNOW. WHAT? Stop screaming at me!" Graysons voice roared through the house. "In moments like this I really would like to just burn the whole fucking thing down. With all of us inside. Ending all our problems. Your problem of non-existing financial problems and my freaking problem that is you screaming at me, lying to me and never ever respecting my choices, my well-meant choices!"_

_Elena didn't hear neither the silent cries of her mother sitting next to the sink on the kitchen floor nor the smack of the door, when her father left the house on his way to the 'Mystic Grill', the village's only bar._

_Being hidden under the black, thick blanket she tried to control her ragged breathing. Her thoughts were swirling in her head and she had the feeling of being close to some kind of an implosion, when she tried to think about what to do. She just wanted to hit her dad, to make him fall to the ground, to kick his legs and scratch his arms and she wanted to scream and to throw her TV through her room, to yell at her mum for staying with him throughout all of these years, to make this pain in her heart and her lungs and everywhere within her go away. To prevent herself from doing something she know she couldn't do her right hand clutched at her left wrist, effectively stopping her from getting up and picking her stuff to throw it around or rip off some of her favourite teddy's limbs. When she withdrew her hand she took a faltering breath at the red crescents on the upper part of her left hand. She became aware of the pain radiating from the spots and tried to concentrate on it as she calmed down more and more. Slowly her breathing started to get normal and her drying tears left black lines on her face. The pain on her hand had subsided, too, when she started to move her legs and get up without really having the energy to do anything. Still trembling she walked over to her bed and lay down. The swirling thoughts in her mind had stopped and had been replaced by emptiness. For some time she just laid there in a stupor, starring at the ceiling and thinking of nothing but the pain in her hand that had the chance to flare up after she had the idea of laying down onto the marks that were coloured by lone reddish drops of dried blood. In the end, the exhaustion won and she fell into a dreamless sleep that prevented her from reliving the words of her father again and again. _

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**Feel free to comment on my story or my English (not my spelling as it's too late to type without faults at 2am;))!**


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